Original Video of The Now Explosion produced in Atlanta, GA, in 1970, has been recovered by video archivists at the University of Georgia at Athens, GA. The marathon music-TV concept was launched in Atlanta ten years before MTV or VH1. Video segments originally broadcast in 1970 and stored in a south Florida garage for 3 1/2 decades have been remastered by the UGA archives to contemporary technical standards and obtained by the original producer, Robert Whitney. It's a bit of a miracle - but now - we've actually got some of the historic Now Explosion video, short samples of which are shown in this Fair Use archival presentation. For more information, see TheNowExplosion.com.

Friday, December 06, 2013

I was looking for the Tex Avery cartoon The House of Tomorrow, because I wanted to listen to the kitchen sequence (narrated by Don Messick). Don't ask me why. I was actually reading about Ghostbusters and wound up here.

Anyway, the roomie came home and told me about how the "winter storm" was keeping all the cars off the road, as there was zero traffic during his drive. Then I found this short, so there it is. The universe is funny.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Strangely, this twenty-years-old, ten-minute video is an introduction for another film, The Parallax View and maybe someday we'll show the montage or something like it at one of the shows. The fellow doing the introducing is Alex Cox and you should respect him.

As a Dallas girl, I've heard all the theories. Trust me, everyone in this town has one. In junior-high, my best friend's parents were working on a book (and sued Oliver Stone for lifting some of their material). I'm not kidding; everyone has a theory.

Buddies of mine were extras in that Oliver Stone film, by the way. They said it was an awful experience.

While I was going to summer-school downtown, the bus that took me home went through the triple-underpass. A buddy of mine, riding home with me one day, grabbed his head and threw himself from his seat yelling, "Oh god! The Birchers got me!" as we rode through the hollow-hallowed spot. I remember the driver telling him to get back into his god-damned seat.

For a while, back in the 90s, I used to park behind the Grassy Knoll ($2 all day! What a deal!) and had to walk past the gawker-hawkers and their commemorative papers. It was usually just a wave of the hand and a muttered, "I live here. I live here...."

And then, on the way back to the car, some foreign guy was asking me where the "suspicious bush" was.

Kennedy was just one of those things that was always there, so I don't really think about it that much. I know it's a big deal today. A really BIG DEAL. I'll be at work, so I'll miss standing out in the rain and cold with no umbrella (they've been banned from the location for some reason).

But, maybe next year, when the anniversary will be on a Saturday, I might be bothered to get up early and go downtown. Not that we want to make a habit out of it or anything.

I'm probably not the person who should be writing about this. But, I feel I need to say something about it.

By now they're getting ready to have a memorial over in Dallas. Maybe some folks will head over to the Historic Texas Theater to watch Oliver Stone's version of events. My friend Red was thinking of driving by Rose Hill Cemetery to see how many people were visiting Oswald's grave, which isn't too far away from where I'm writing this.

On my first trip to Dallas my friends and soon to be friends were amusing themselves by reenacting the events of Dealey Plaza. Before moving to Texas I even went to the 6th Floor Museum.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is how strange it is to me that an event that happened before I was born seems to have such a hold over this place. It has such a terrible gravity that it affects everybody's orbits, pulling at us whether we give a damn or not.

The one who should be writing about this is Dr. Mila. Her father was there.

Me? I think I want to celebrate my birthday by complaining about my eggs and using BAAAD language

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

It doesn't get more 80s then this. An evil ninja possesses an aerobics instructor and Sho Kosugi has to save the day! And yeah, this is the end of the Ninja Trilogy of which there is nothing that connects this movie with Enter the Ninja or Revenge of the Ninja except there are ninjas and Sho Kosugi is in all of them. Not to be confused with Golan Glubus's other 80s ninjafest: American Ninja.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Let's face it. Sho Kosugi was no Bruce Lee, but he was good enough for Golan Globus who upgraded him from bad guy in Enter the Ninja (1981) to leading man in Revenge of the Ninja (1983). And while Kosugi can dish out the Ninjitsu his acting is the cheesy filling in 80s cheese log. It's like a Chuck Norris film without Chuck Norris.